Social Engineering

DEFINITION: Pretexting is a form of social engineering in which an individual lies about his identity or purpose to obtain privileged data about another individual. A pretexter may then use this data to engage in identity theft or corporate espionage. Pretexting may be employed by telephone or email, through customer service instant messaging or a company Web site. A pretexter may use a variety of strategies
Definition continues below.

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SOCIAL ENGINEERING DEFINITION (continued): to obtain personal information. In one scenario, for example, the pretexter might call an individual claiming affiliation with a bank, survey firm or credit agency. In another scenario, a pretexter might claim to be a customer, client or employee of a company to gain access to phone or electronic records. After establishing trust with the targeted individual, the pretexter might ask a series of questions designed to gather key individual identifiers (like social security numbers, mother's maiden name, place or date of birth, or account numbers) under the guise of needing to confirm the individual's Social Engineering definition sponsored by SearchCIO.com, powered by WhatIs.com an online computer dictionary

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